New Scooby-Doo! DVD Collection - 13 Spooky Tales: For the Love of Snack

Scooby’s insatiable appetite is the focus of For the Love of Snack, a new two-disc DVD compilation of older and recent animated episodes. This is the latest in Warner Bros. Home Entertainment’s on-going 13 Spooky Tales series. While by no means the most complete way to acquire the Mystery Inc. gang’s adventures, these collections are an economical way to get a sampling of Scooby-Doo! from different decades.

Most of For the Love of Snack has been issued on DVD before in one form or another, but there are a few episodes here that haven’t been available before. Unlike the recent 13 Spooky Tales sets Ruh-Roh Robot and Run for Your Rife, Snack doesn’t have any newly-produced, exclusive material. The first new-to-DVD stuff arrives late on disc one, with two segments from later episodes of the 1980 first season of The Richie Rich/Scooby-Doo Show, “Scooby’s Swiss Miss,” “Et Tu, Scoob?,” and “Soggy Bog, Scooby.”

More previously unavailable material from The Richie Rich/Scooby-Doo Show starts the second disc. There’s “South Seas Scare” and “Scooby Gumbo” (but “Alaskan King Coward” showed up on the Winter Wonderdog DVD in 2002). A trio of segments from season two of The Richie Rich/Scooby-Doo Show (1981) show up: ““Hothouse Scooby,” “Scooby-Doo 2000,” and “Punk Rock Scooby.” The only other episode new-to-disc is the concluding one, “The Many Faces of Evil,” from the second season of Shaggy & Scooby-Doo Get A Clue! (2007).

So the rest will be familiar to the hardcore Scooby collectors. Disc one kicks off with “Wanted Cheddar Alive,” from the first season of A Pup Named Scooby-Doo (1988). For those who don’t remember, this series was one of many that aimed for the success of Muppet Babies. Scooby is, as suggested by the title, much younger here (as are the other characters) and the plot, involving a “cheese monster” wreaking havoc on the Scooby snack factory, is similarly juvenile. “Night of the Living Burger” comes from the second season of the same show.

As for the rest, there’s a decided focus on more recent Scooby-Doo! programs. Three episodes from Mystery Incorporated are included, “When the Cicada Calls” (from the 2010 first season) and “The Devouring” and “The Gathering Gloom” from the recent 2013 second season. Two episodes come from the 2003 second season of What’s New Scooby-Doo?, “Big Appetite in Little Tokyo” and “Recipe for Disaster.” Filling out the set are additional various food-related segments from the first season of The Richie Rich/Scooby-Doo Show that aired in 1980. A mixed bag, as usual with the 13 Spooky Tales, but a good starter set and a sure kid-pleasing collection.